Emira’s Home Birth

Last Saturday, February 16th, 2008, I had my 40 Week 3 Day appointment. My midwife did an internal and said I was the same as last week (3cm Dilated). Boy was I disappointed. She offered to sweep my membranes again, (Which we had done for past 3 weeks) and of course since I was tired of pregnancy and felt it as time I said yes. She did the sweep and as we were sitting on her couch visiting I started to get waves.

She had just delivered another baby at 8 am and had been up all night so she was going home to sleep for a couple of hours. When we left the appointment it was about 2 o’clock. A quick note, I had decided to homebirth about 32 weeks along in this pregnancy. I loved my obgyn but she was going to be out of town on my due date week. She had suggested being induced a week early so she could support me in my effort for a natural childbirth. But my whole reason for going for natural and not an epidural this time had been to see/trust my body to work on its own this time so being induced did not sound reasonable at all to me.

I found a great direct entry (homebirth in Utah) midwife and began seeing her in December. We decide to go eat lunch and see if the waves would progress. We stopped at one Costco to get gas then started heading towards Chili’s. On our way there I decided to start timing waves at 2:46pm. They were coming every 5-6 minutes consistently. I decided I couldn’t sit through a sit down lunch with these waves so we headed to a different Costco to eat pizza with the kids and walk around. Well we got to eating pizza but I couldn’t walk they were so strong.

I was fine breathing through them and was using a method called Hypnobabies to cope with the waves. This is a method of Self Hypnosis and it worked great for me. I imagined my waves as waves on the ocean and just rode them out not experiencing pain but definitely pressure. We called our midwife Vivian and told her sorry to wake you but this is where I am. She said to drive home and let her know if I was still having waves. Half an hour later we were home it was about 5pm. I timed waves for another hour and they stayed about 4-5 minutes apart. I was sensing a difference in them though so I called her and asked her to drive up. This takes about 45 minutes from where she is so we called our families to give them the heads up as well.

When Vivian got to our house I was still timing waves online. She took one look at me and said are you willing to stop timing your waves and just admit you are in labor? I laughed and said yes and we headed downstairs. We did an internal and I was at a 7-8. At this point when I was having waves the top part of the waves were very intense and I had to have my husband holding my hands then but they were still completely something I could handle. I was upset because the water tub was still not full but it was full enough to get in.

I had been laboring on a birth ball which was great until transition where I dropped to my knees and held my husbands hands. By now it was about 8:30pm. I was in the pushing stage for about 30 minutes and with 4 pushes Emira was out and joined us at 8:56pm. She was a perfect 8lb 2 oz and 21 inches long. She came out peacefully and lay on my chest. She did have the cord wrapped around her neck twice so my husband was unable to catch her which I think was a little disappointing to him but of course the Emira’s safety was our top priority.

We went to the pediatrician two days later and everything still looked great. We have been home a week today and she is sweet and sleeps a ton and is my first child I am able to really breastfeed (because of work schedule) so I am so excited to have this time with her.

A couple of quick thoughts. My waves never came closer than 4minutes apart lasting at most 2 minutes so it was good I could feel the change from regular to transition stage. My water didn’t break until I was pushing and already fully dilated, so all those “signs” I was watching for never happened but being in tune with my body ended up being the most important thing.

Also, my Hypnobabies technique was so effective at keeping me in a state of calm that even my mother who is a RN and was totally against homebirth/natural childbirth said you have convinced me if all births could be this peaceful, birth would be viewed completely differently. If you made it this far into my story thanks for reading and good luck to everyone with their sweet babies.

Wendy

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This was a very helpful post! I’m currently 11 weeks pregnant with my first child, and I’m researching birth options. At present, I have an OB/Gyn, but I’m not very impressed with her. I think I would be more comfortable at a birthing center, attended by a midwife.